Eva Edl is a survivor. The 89-year-old widow grew up in the former Yugoslavia, where she saw the horrors of Communism firsthand. She came to the U.S. because she thought it was a bastion of freedom and liberty, however, she now finds herself facing time in prison for trying to convince women not to kill their unborn babies.
When Edl was six, the Nazis invaded her homeland. Even though her family had German heritage, the Nazis considered her father an “impure Aryan” and sent him to the front lines. As he lay sick in a hospital bed, he sent a message to his family to flee, but they didn’t get the message in time.
“A coup against Yugoslavia's king caused a violent civil war to erupt, emasculating Yugoslavia's defenses even as the powerful Nazi war machine began to drop bombs on them,” Edl’s biography explains. “The nation's communists gradually suppressed the various sects clamoring for power, and displayed such a courageous resistance against the overwhelming Nazi forces that they won the admiration of the Western democracies.”
The Communists targeted the German-heritage Danube-Swabian people like Edl’s family. Her Hungarian grandmother was initially able to hide her grandchildren, but not for long. The Communists forced Edl’s mother and older siblings into labor camps and sent Edl and her grandmother to a concentration camp.
Amid the grim atmosphere of the Communist concentration camp, where death loomed at every turn, Edl came to faith in Jesus. Somehow, she made her way out and fled to Austria and eventually the U.S. seeking freedom.
In the land of the free, Edl discovered a different kind of horror. While taking an English class in the ‘60s, she learned about abortion. This was before Roe v. Wade, yet Edl recoiled at the idea that a mother would kill her child in the womb. She eventually became a pro-life activist.
Related: ProPublica Lies About Georgia's Pro-Life Law to Push the Pro-Abortion Narrative
“In the fall of 1988, 400 protesters were arrested outside of abortion clinics after two months of pro-life protests following the Democratic National Convention in Atlanta,” said John Stonestreet on the Colson Center’s Breakpoint podcast. “Eva was shocked by this, but also compelled to do something.”
Edl took part in her first protest, which she calls “rescues,” shortly after that at a clinic in Atlanta, and that was also her first arrest. Since then, she has participated in about 50 such protests and been arrested dozens of times.
“Eva felt the call of God to lay down her life to rescue unborn children, just as others laid down their life to rescue her,” her biography explains. “She became a voice for life and justice and an icon in the rescue movement in the United States, where up to 80,000 Christians were arrested blockading abortion clinic entrances in the 80's and 90's. Eva Edl has been arrested 46 times blockading abortion clinics, trying to save babies from death by abortion.”
Last month, Edl was one of seven protesters convicted of violating the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act. The protesters stood at the entrance to an abortion clinic in Michigan.
“A federal jury convicted seven defendants today of federal civil rights offenses arising out of their blockade of a reproductive health care clinic in Sterling Heights, Michigan, on Aug. 27, 2020,” the Department of Justice announced in August. “The defendants were each convicted of a felony conspiracy against rights and a Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act offense” (emphasis added). The DoJ also announced that Edl and one other woman had blocked access to another clinic the following year.
Edl potentially faces 11 years in prison. If that’s her sentence, she won’t get out before she turns 100 — if she lives that long. And we can’t expect the Biden-Harris “justice” system to let an abortion protester out early for good behavior.
While you may not agree with Edl and her fellow protesters’ methods — I don’t think physically blocking clinic entrances is a good idea — it’s still an infuriating thought that an old woman could die in prison in an ostensibly free nation after enduring the terrors of Nazism and Communism. Under the Biden-Harris administration, justice is upside-down.
As illegal immigrant rapists and murderers are running around our country, bureaucracy is preventing hurricane victims from getting the help they need, and pro-Hamas protesters are getting away with violence, think about Eva Edl. Better yet, consider her story when you go to the polls in November.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member